Papez circuit by Thomas A. Ban

Papez circuit has been called, “a reverberating circuit in the brain which consist of the cingulate gyrus, hippocampus, amygdala, mammillary bodies, hypothalamus and anterior thalamus” (Kaplan and Saddock 1988). It was named after James Papez who, in 1939, suggested that emotions are processed through these structures in the brain before becoming subjectively experienced feelings in the cerebral cortex (Ban 2011; Papez 1939). The Papez circuit is also referred to as “limbic lobe”, because its site corresponds with Paul Broca’s “great limbic lobe” (Broca 1878), and “visceral brain, because of its numerous connections with the autonomic nervous system (Maclean 1942).